![]() Thus encouraging patriarchy, Frankenstein makes his way towards an unnatural society without women. Mellor points out that by failing to create a female companion for his monster, Victor Frankenstein strives to ‘control and even destroy female sexuality’ (279). By doing so in a womblike laboratory, he brings to life the creature, which has been interpreted as a ‘predatory violence against nature’ (Woodring 104) or even a ‘rape of nature’ (Mellor 281). Frankenstein admires how ‘Nature adorns her dwelling places’ (Shelley 109) and pursues ‘nature to her hiding places’ (32). Strikingly, throughout the novel nature is identified as female. By artificially and miraculously bringing his inanimate project to life, Frankenstein leaves the ordinary course of nature and produces something abnormal and supernatural. Accordingly, Frankenstein abused electricity, a natural force, to stimulate ‘the lifeless thing’ (Shelley 34). Among other things, a spark is ‘a bright or glittering emanation, flash, or gleam of light’ (OED “spark”). The supernatural facet can be put down to circumstances surrounding the creation: ‘a spark of being’ (34) is used to bring the creature to life. Its physical power exceeds that of human beings and it is not as prone to harsh weather conditions, which renders it superhuman. It was created in an unnatural way by an unnatural method, and can therefore only be unnatural. Though consisting of natural parts and intended as a ‘human being’ (Shelley 31), the so called monster is ‘unearthly in his ugliness’ (153). Several aspects make Frankenstein’s creature unnatural and other attributes render it supernatural. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL IN THE TWO TEXTS Accordingly, supernatural exceeds these characteristics by ‘transcending the powers or the ordinary course of nature’ and is ‘more than the natural or ordinary unnaturally or extraordinarily great abnormal, extraordinary’. In addition, it is ‘taking place in conformity with the ordinary course of nature not unusual, marvellous, or miraculous’. My understanding of natural follows that of the OED: it refers to ‘natural things or objects matters having their basis in the natural world or in the usual course of nature’ also ‘that which is natural or according to the ordinary course of things’ is included, and should be ‘existing in, or formed by, nature consisting of objects of this kind not artificially made, formed, or constructed’. In order to examine the relationship between natural and supernatural, the crucial terms need to be defined. Another common ground situated on the border of natural and supernatural is the reoccurring notion of sublimity, which will be considered rather extensively. This culmination, though, links the two texts: Frankenstein’s desire, his ‘almost supernatural enthusiasm’ (Shelley 30), is realized in bringing to life the supernatural creature which ultimately, like natural forces in Poe’s story, proves destructive. ![]() Found in a Bottle’ natural force, embodied in the sea, does not have a counterpart, whether natural or unnatural, but culminates in a supernatural, all-devouring abyss. In Frankenstein, nature is presented in harmony with the actually unnatural, in some respects even supernatural, creature, whereas it appears to oppose as well as soothe the creator who transgressed the boundaries of natural science. In this essay, different aspects of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural will be examined in two Gothic texts: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus and Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘M.S. Lacking a precise and stable meaning, the term commonly refers to literature that dramatizes the fantastic, supernatural, and macabre and features narrative suspense that creates horror. Perceptions of nature are central to much romantic literature, whereas notions of the supernatural can rather be found in a type of literature that is associated with the Romantic period: the Gothic. ![]()
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